The Difference Between Nightmares and Reality
by BlackwolfBreen
Summary: What if Voldemort really was in the station during Order of the Phoenix? Written after watching the movie. R&R greatly appreciated.


The Difference Between Nightmares and Reality

Train whistles echoed in the station, steam from the brakes filling the walkway as a boy walked past. He was alone here, amongst these other people as he walked towards the pillar between platforms nine and ten. Their shouts and joyful laughter faded as he thought to himself. He was a wizard among muggles, muggles who didn't have a clue as to who he was or what all he had gone through in his life. They would never know just how many times Harry Potter had escaped death or how many times Voldemort had tried to take over both Hogwarts and the wizarding world. They would never know just why he had been given the name The Boy Who Lived. They would never know that the Ministry and perhaps now the whole wizarding world believed he was a liar. The would never know the anger he had been feeling recently...

He had no explanation for it. Perhaps he was just stressed. Perhaps he was going insane, just like everyone said. Or perhaps it was just because everyone else, his own friends and Headmaster and the ones he considered almost family, had left him completely in the dark... when he was the one that was supposed to save the world from Voldemort.

The name didn't send shivers down his spine like it did everyone else. It was a name that conjured up memories of that terrible October night fourteen years ago, and of the graveyard that the Triwizard Cup had sent him to, and of poor Cedric Diggory, who really shouldn't have died at all.

Voldemort had returned, and nobody believed him.

Then, clear as day, he saw a figure in front of him. A black suit... greatly contrasting the pale skin, bald scalp, and chillingly red eyes. The cat-like pupils bore into him as the one man he never thought he'd see now, HERE of all places moved his head about as if cracking his neck. It was the same motion Harry recognised that he had been making when he got a rush of that anger, that frustration, that utter hatred of... He couldn't even place what it was.

And then, Voldemort pulled something out of his sleeve. Harry watched as the man gently held out his wand, bone-white and smooth as a snake's skin, and pointed it straight at Harry. Harry knew he didn't have his wand on him, and that he was alone. Alone amongst these muggles, who didn't have any idea as to who this was standing in front of him, or just how much danger Harry was in. Harry found it strange that nobody had screamed at the sight of this person who was less than a man and more snake than anything. Perhaps he was imagining it all... Yes, that was it. It was a horrible dream, and he's wake up all the same to the smell Mrs. Weasley's wonderful cooking. He'd find himself back in the Burrow, or maybe at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, and Crookshanks would be sitting not far off in Hermione's lap, and Ron would be sitting nearby to ask what he had been dreaming about this time, just the same way it had happened so many times before. It was all a dream...

And as he watched the ivory lips formed the words, those two terrible words he had seen on those lips before... The same two words that had killed both his parents and given him that scar. Harry pressed his fingers to the lightning bolt shape. Everything had gone silent, and slow. So incredibly slow that it was amazing how long it took the green jet of light to shoot out of the wand.

It was just a dream.

He had to convince himself that as a searing pain shot through his chest, and in an instant was gone. He had no idea where it had gone or if it was even there, but as he fell to the ground he knew... this dream was different. He saw the lips curling into a terrible smile, a haunting sneer, and then into what Harry guessed was a shout of triumph and as the darkness closed in he knew...

Voldemort had returned...

But perhaps, with the death of The Boy Who Lived, the world would believe him.


End file.
